Please provide a color photograph of the author(s); good head and shoulder shot is best because these photos run very small. Also, each article should include a two or three sentence biographical statement, for example, "Joe Author has been a UNIX systems administrator for ten years. He keeps ducks and freshwater shrimp for a hobby and welcomes your comments sent to joe@ducksnshrimp.org." The bio can be serious or humorous.

We also need your mailing address, which is not published, in order to send you an author contract, payment and complimentary copies of Tux.

Some optional items that you may choose to include with your article are:

Alternate Titles
If you can't decide on a title, include more than one.

Sidebars
Consider including short standalone blocks of text that explain useful tools and techniques relevant to the subject of the article. For example, if you're writing an article that mentions using diff(1) to show differences in C files, you might want to include a short sidebar on indent(1) to help the readers separate minor differences in format from meaningful changes.

Screenshots
We've already covered this subject, but screenshots really help readers understand GUI programs. Use screenshots to illustrate major steps or concepts. Don't use an extra screenshot when it's easy for the reader to visualize it based on an previous screenshot.

Teaser or Summary Text
We include a short description of each articles at the top of the first page of the article and in the table of contents page. Look at a recent issue of Tux for ideas, and consider sending us some text to help sell your article.